LIVING & MOWING IN A GREEN WORLD

How many of you have heard or even said it yourself, “If it weren’t for all the weeds in my lawn being green and growing like, well, like weeds, I wouldn't have to mow at all?

C’est moi! That’s me and my lawns.  Back, front, sides, doesn’t matter.  If it weren’t for the abundance of weedy green things, I really wouldn’t have to mow at all.  I long for the good ole’ days when I first moved to Sandycove Acres, from the Town Down Under. 

I push back in my over-stuffed blue tweed recliner, pop up the foot stool thingie and lay back with a tired sigh (even before coffee this morning, I weed-whacked all the naked dandelion stalks and then mowed) and remember back to when I first moved into New Dodge, aka Sandycove Acres.

Sofie's Little Pink Belly

The front lawn had been sodded long before moving day (good thing – it had been a mud pit when I bought the house) and had taken rather well and not a weed to be seen.  I’m thinking either Mother Nature had been extraordinarily generous with spring rain (it was, after all, only very early June), or maybe someone had been watering it.  The what wasn’t really important, just the result.  EXCEPT that Sofie, The Wonder Dog, although big of heart, is small in stature and can’t stand to tinkle if the grass is tickling her cute, little pink belly.  So, that leaves?  Yep, you guessed it!  My neighbours immaculately maintained lawn.  Her grass abuts my grass and, on the other side, my grass abuts my neighbour’s grass and so on and so on and so on.  I had to get my grass mowed and tout de suite!  I spotted my neighbour, Rich, toiling on my neighbour’s lawn across the street and made a bee-line straight for him.  In no time he was over at my house, mowing back my new-sod-gone-wild in the front yard to a height that Sofie would pee on instead of my neighbour’s.

Well now, three years later, my front lawn, especially, is a weedy hot mess.  Mostly it’s because my neighbour to the east of me, whose lawn abuts mine, does not believe in weed control at all.  Oh, and the neighbour I had when I first moved in with the immaculate lawn?  Well, didn’t she move out a month after I moved in?  The new neighbour, besides being a Water Rat (that’s another story for another day), also didn’t seem to care much about the outside of her property as much as she loved playing cards, scrabble, bingo and pretty much any kind of game you can name.  So, she sometimes had someone mow her lawn but nothing else much beyond that. 

 So now, with neighbours on both sides of my house with abutting lawns, who not only ignore weeds but actually seem to encourage them, my lawns didn’t stand a chance.  Before too long, we all had a good sunny crop of gaily waving dandelions, which I’ve heard, are good for the bees, and are considered to be the bee’s spring savior. 

Why all the pondering 2 years later?  Well, the game-playing neighbour moved out last year (I pause to sniff my pits), the second neighbour to move away in my three year tenure here.  The new neighbour, who besides having a huge sense of entitlement, has an ‘Alzie’ husband and a penchant for strict order, at least on the outside.  After spending months having her ‘new’ house renovated (and alienating her neighbour – yes, me, with a constant stream of contractors, etc. most of whom thought nothing of parking in my parking spot – another story for another time), finally finishes and now seems to be determined to whip her lawn into military-like preciseness.  So just when I think ‘her’ work is done, lawn guys roar up our quiet crescent early in the morning, spring from their jacked-up pick-up trucks with their young, perfectly working knees, all manner of tools at hand.  Other trucks deliver load after load of rich, black dirt and the outside makeover commences.  Sigh, it seems like ‘her’ work here will never be done.

Oh well, at least all this lawn work might actually encourage grass to grow, instead of  green, weedy things.  Well, after about what seems like a week but is probably only 2 or 3 days, the lawn guys leave in their tricked-out trucks.  Ahh, peace and quiet reigns again on Marlin Court.

Sofie just being cute

It doesn’t last long.  I’m guessing my neighbour was not satisfied with the lawn guy’s work, so now The Weed Guys start coming.  One day when I went outside with Sofie,  The Wonder Dog, my porch was littered with these small, white, pellets. Hmm, say I, peering rather nearsightedly at these strange things on my porch, where did this all this s*^t come from?  It didn’t take long before the birdie chirps and I figure out that ‘she’ had had her lawn done.  The sign on the edge of ‘her’ lawn is a dead give-away too.  Not happy am I.  I really don’t believe in all the crap ‘they’, the Lawn Companies, use on the lawns, even after the pesticide ban.  ‘They’ have come up with something ‘they’ claim is safe for dogs but the girl who was spraying today couldn’t tell me what was in the s*^t she was using, only the name of it.  I, nicely, asked her to make sure that crap was sprayed only on my neighbour’s lawn and not mine.  Oh, and the strange, white pellets which were on my porch – still don’t know.

Well, to make a short story just a titch longer, yesterday when I left the house for a client’s, ‘her’ neighbour on the other side, Ringo (not really) was mowing ‘her’ lawn.  When I got home, I noticed quite the swath had been cut entirely around my birdbath and Ringo likes to cut short.  I’ve been told that you’re supposed to keep your grass at a 3” height (7.6 cm for those metrically in-the-know) and so I do.  After I mowed today, you sure can tell who knows about the 3” rule and who doesn’t.  It looks odd.

Bald as a monk's head

I saw Ringo this morning and called over to him about his mowing job.  His excuse?  He didn’t know where the lot line was.  I pantomimed it to him with hand and arm signals, feeling like one of those guys who guide the gargantuan planes into their parking space at the airport, and a verbal explanation.  He didn’t look happy.  I have to believe that my neighbour, ‘Her’ had given him his mowing orders and had instructed him to go around the birdbath rather than just mow it on her side.  She had been at me a couple of times this week about its location and the weeds around it.  She thought it was hers (left behind by the previous owner, Water Rat) and was going to move it to Her backyard.  She did have sense enough though to ask me, though, who it belonged to before doing that.  ‘She’ also didn’t like the golden flowers I had let grow up around it, enjoying the contrast between the sunny yellow dandelions and the drab concrete.  The area now resembles a tonsure.               

I am territorial about my parking spaces, porch and yes, even my weeds and if Ringo ever mows my side again, I’m guessing ‘She’ and I will be having a nice chat about boundaries – again (and yes, that’s another story for another day).

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